


I hate your guts (I want you so much)

by MFLuder



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Bisexual Roy Harper, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Drug Addiction, Gen, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Mentor/Sidekick, Minor Roy Harper/Jason Todd/Koriand'r, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pining, References to Addiction, references to propositioning a minor, underaged character with sexual thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 05:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19289152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: It's time for Roy to go home. It brings up a host of memories about the death of his father, his time as Speedy, and his big childhood crush. He and Oliver sure do have some things to work out.





	I hate your guts (I want you so much)

**Author's Note:**

> There is no actual underage in this fic. I consider this T+ as though sex is mentioned and there's a few strong words in there, no sex actually occurs "on screen". YMMV.
> 
> Inspired by Green Arrow Rebirth (2016) issues 18-20. I can't help but wonder if the author meant to have Roy calling Oliver pretty and spying on him with a woman through his bedroom door in the same issue and whether he realized exactly what that might imply about Roy's relationship with Oliver. Hence this fic, all written in one long night. Some dialogue is directly from the comics. Title taken from Daughter's _Landfill_. Unbetaed.

He was fifteen going on sixteen when Oliver found him in the closed mall, living on the streets for almost three years by that time. It probably started then, when Oliver’s first question was “where’d you learn to use a bow” followed, secondly, by “who are you?”

It was a strange reaction, for sure. That yeah, he came flying at him from _nowhere_ demanding his wallet back, but it hadn’t been about the wallet. This stranger, this pretty blond guy, older than him, had looked at Roy and seen past his untamed hair, the outfit he’d stolen from H&M, past the weapon itself to ask him “where’d you learn to use a bow?”

It had been the first time Roy had felt _seen_ since, well _since_.

Since he’d been thirteen and woken up to Big Bow, struck dead in the neck, one red arrow sticking out, blood dried where the water he was laying in hadn’t touched him yet.

Maybe that moment had been Roy’s sexual awakening, cemented by the kind of awe that strikes a kid used to living on the streets when he’s invited up to a penthouse, kind of expecting to be asked for a favor in turn for not going to the cops about the wallet – it wouldn’t be the first time someone had thought they could ask the local red-haired urchin for a blowjob – and instead receiving a kind of familial warmth and a home-cooked meal like this blond twenty-something was just desperate to be someone’s dad.

And maybe Roy already had a lot of daddy issues.

But he does what he’s always done, he cons, he survives. Soon enough Oliver fucking Queen – shit even _he’s_ heard of the guy, he owns half of Seattle, he’s poor not _dumb_ – is passed out because the guy’s _old_ , seriously, and Roy can quietly open the cabinet of liquor and pull out some fancy ass beer as he hunts around the loft for cash dropped before finally making his way to the security door. Again, Roy’s no dummy, and he figures out the pathetic use for a code in two attempts, plus a little jimmying of the metal locks.

Of course, he’s not in the _freakin’ Green Arrow’s_ hideout for more than two minutes before Oliver is behind him, voice sounding somewhat impressed, even as it adopts a fatherly tone as he tells Roy, “No drinking,” grabbing the bottle back from his hand.

It’s funny that Speedy is the name that stuck. Sure, it fit in that moment, “speedy deduction,” Oliver had said, in response to Roy’s enthusiasm that he’s the Green Arrow. Okay, maybe it fits with his personality, too, all tightly wound and racing. Racing so hard, that all Roy wants is a fucking break, he wants to forget, forget it all, his parents’ death, the guilt, his own stupidity, his existence as a total waste of space. He’s anxious, always anxious – and this is where the irony comes in – he wants nothing more than to slow down, to stop feeling, to be dizzy and free. So, yeah. Speedy. Because reasons.

He wonders if Oliver ever regretted that nickname, the same way he regretted taking Roy into his life.

Everyone regrets their decision to take Roy in. Eventually. Mostly with their deaths.

Anyway. Yeah, so what that his first real crush is Oliver Queen, a man as straight as the day is long. Even at fifteen, Roy recognized hero worship: that Oliver’s shockingly blond hair and his frat boy good looks, eased with expensive hair and skin products, and a workout regiment that would make personal trainers feel inadequate, was tied into the warm feelings he felt when he decided to take him, to teach him. To the effects of puberty that had been held off from malnourishment and his body’s determination to keep him safe and not too threatening while it scrounged for scraps. The last time he’d masturbated had been in his room on the rez, hand stuffed in his mouth, so he wouldn’t wake up Big Bow or Bird. His body hadn’t even felt the need, too distracted, too _focused_ on finding his next sip of alcohol, to think about orgasms.

A month into staying with Oliver Queen though, and it was back to shoving his fist in his mouth, then deciding he doesn’t give a fuck if Ollie hears because maybe then he’d come and do something about it. It’s a fantasy he entertains over the two years he and Oliver are partners.

Oliver would knock on his bedroom door, poking his head in, wondering what all the noise is about. Then, seeing Roy’s hand on his dick, he’d try to back out, apologizing, a hint of red to his cheekbones – something he never gets with his women. But Roy would call out for him, convince him, somehow, that he was wanted, that Roy wasn’t too young, that it isn’t bad, who cares if it’s illegal, Oliver, I _need_ you.

Those fantasies would get even more specific after he’d spy on Oliver through the keyhole of his bedroom – isn’t that hilarious, the guy with security systems for his bow and arrows can’t manage a bedroom door that isn’t ripe for spying, almost like he wanted to be caught. Or so Roy would imagine, furiously stroking his dick and shoving one finger up his ass as he fantasized about Oliver dropping the woman of the night on the floor, casting her out, and taking Roy instead, pretty, generous dick all wet, just for Roy.

Yeah, he may not be as _physically_ intimate with Oliver Queen’s dick as Canary probably is, but he knows what it _looks_ like, hard and wet, and sliding into a woman’s cunt.

Two years with the guy and that crush never went away. Even when he started having sex himself, it was mostly with substitutes. Blonde women who were thin and lithe, gay twinks high on weed. None of them touched his needs, his desire for the one man who actually cared for him. Or who had, for a little while.

Until Roy fucked it up. Oliver had been in Vegas so long, Roy hadn’t been expecting him to show up _that night_ , and he was blissed out, high as a kite, Marta – Meghan? Melissa? – another one of those blonde bimbos pressing her breasts against his arm. He’d barely been cognizant of what she might have been ready to do before Oliver got home, or of Oliver kicking everyone out that night.

But vivid in his mind, is a self-righteous twenty-seven-year-old Oliver yelling at him while he sits, scrunched up over his knees on the couch, telling him he’s “a loser, a burden, a mistake,” and Roy leaving before he can be told to leave.

Oliver finds him a week later, wearing his Speedy mask, in the torn tatters of his costume because he’d been thinking about Oliver when he’d shot up, desperately sad that he’d been left again, that he was nothing more than a burden, hoping maybe this hit wouldn’t only free him from his mind, but maybe his body too. He thought he was dreaming at first, imagining Green Arrow above him because he so badly wants to be scooped up in his arms and taken home, but then the man is calling him Speedy instead of _Roy_ and exclaiming how Roy is “one bad decision” like Roy is one of his floozies and it’s worse than he could have imagined, because he left last time, but now Oliver really is leaving _him_ , jumping out the window of the abandoned warehouse Roy was crashing at, telling him he’s _weak_. Roy only proves it as he drags his body up and out, trying to call after Oliver. He doesn’t even have money for his next hit.

 _I’m nobody_ , he thinks. _I’m nobody_ , he says, to the silent air as Oliver is swinging off the side of another building, already two blocks away.

Turns out Count Vertigo had been watching him and he knows, knows what Speedy needs. He clings to that, tells Vertigo not to stop, and spends what he finds out later is six months helping Vertigo and being held captive under his addiction to the dizzy feeling the man is all too willing to give him. Funny, turns out he’s just as straight as Ollie. The one time Roy decides to show his gratitude: Vertigo’s face is hard to read under his mask, but Roy knows the sneer, flinches at the accused “fag,” even as he brushes it off as a joke, as a favor, nothing more, and goes back to the iPad where he’s updating the code for the release of Towerkill.

Oliver rescues him from that, too, because the guy doesn’t want him around, but can’t seem to leave him alone, either. It’s in saving him that Oliver seems to recognize some amount of worth in Roy, ironic, given Roy can’t see anything left in himself, only wants to find his next hit, now that Vertigo is down for the count courtesy of his own created electro-shock arrow. His skin is buzzing, desperate for anything to stop the memories hitting him right then. He socks a punch to Vertigo’s jaw for a final hurrah, foolishly declaring he’s his own mess, and even as Ollie calls after him, he walks away once more, making grandiose claims about being his own hero.

He doesn’t think it showed, but it killed him to walk away. His body as desperate for Oliver’s touch as it was for alcohol, for an oxy, for something to still his mind. His crush is still there.

By the time he’s twenty, Roy is slumming it with the junkies, enjoying his hits of H, enjoying the companionship of tattooed women with unnaturally-colored dyed hair who remind him nothing of Oliver Queen, in a back alley in New York – where he wound up after a five-day bender. He’d grown in his time with Oliver and now has to fight – fight to get food, fight for the women, fight for the H. It’s his quick reflexes and size that keep him alive, as it was when he was fourteen, but now no one thinks they can force him down on their cocks. He’s done other things he’s not proud of, though, that have nothing to do with sex and go beyond his perpetual state of seeking the next high. Anything that will keep him from thinking about those final words he left, that he was going to be his own hero and how here he is, back in the dirt with the rest of the scum and lowlifes. 

It takes Oliver’s disappearance to make him stop using. When he’d stumbled across the headline _Oliver Queen, Billionaire, Goes Missing_ , on a paper left rain-soaked in the gutter, it’d felt like a sobering punch. He dragged himself first to a shelter, then, as two weeks went by with no ransom and no evidence Oliver had just been on a trip or a GA operation and forgotten to check his email, Roy takes himself to a clinic and gets himself clean. He feels like hell and it’s five weeks before his body and mind are even clear enough to check the news again. This time the headline is _Queen Yacht Recovered: Queen Presumed Dead_. It nearly sends him spiraling again, but he didn’t spend those weeks sick to have to start over and Roy checks himself out, with doctor’s approval, and makes his way back to the streets, but this time he uses them to make himself into Arsenal, what he’d promised Ollie nearly three years before.

In the five years after, he’s been part of the Teen Titans – though that always grated given he was beyond a _teen_ at that point – dealt with Cadmus, even the Suicide Squad, and best of all, been part of the Outlaws.

Now he knows what love actually feels like. He’s come to know it from the most unlikely of places – a black-haired killer who has as much baggage and daddy issues as Roy. Pieced together by Kori, a spark of light and love as bright as Roy’s soul had felt dark, he and Jason found each other and it’s about more than the scorching hotness of the two others, of the picture of the three of them – he knows, they did it in a hotel with a mirror on the ceiling once – but about the strange sense of stability they lend him, how he’s soft around them in a way he never thought he could be, how, when he’s with them, his desire for H seems to fade. It’s never fully gone, of course, that’s not how addiction works, and he still struggles sometimes, when he sees someone take a drink. Jason makes sure to never do it in his presence, to never come back to him, to _them_ , with it on his tongue. Kori’s never taken an interest in Earth alcohol, thankfully, though she’s not opposed and has been known to use it when the op calls for it.

It’s been a good last three years in Gotham, in Blüdhaven, with them. But even Jason recognized he needed to go back, sort out his issues. The pipeline protests had simply been the necessary call home Roy had already known he needed to take.

He’d heard Oliver Queen was back. He’d heard rumors of the Green Arrow taking down an international slave trafficking syndicate. He even heard Green Arrow and Black Canary were wanted by law enforcement on the radio as he drove across country from New York where he’d left Jason and Kori with Artemis. He hadn’t let it affect him, practicing one of those mindfulness techniques Jason taught him, that he’d apparently learned from Batman. That, and the medication he’s on for his anxiety, help keep his mind quieter these days, though he still struggles, still has days where Kori rocks him back and forth, when Jason looks like he’s about to commit murder – again – on whoever or whatever has caused Roy to seize up. Honestly, he always looks murderous though, mostly because it’s in Roy’s head and can’t be _fixed_ ; Jason hates feeling helpless. Not that Roy hasn’t held Jason through his own share of nightmares haunted by laughter and baseball bats. 

They’re all a little fucked up.

Despite the news, he isn’t expecting both his past lives to meet this way, when he comes back to the rez. He’s home in a way he hasn’t been since he was thirteen and it’s hauntingly familiar, even abandoned. The picture of Elvis is still hanging by the window. The place is messy, but not trashed or covered in dust. He wonders if Bird is living here, or just keeping it up, after all these years. When he picks up the eight by ten of him, Big Bow, and Bird, where Roy is twelve, it makes him consider the latter more strongly. 

Sure enough, the greeting from his adoptive brother is less than kind, not that Roy blames him. Roy knows why he left, why they’ve not spoken since he was a pre-teen. Bird still blames him for their father’s death.

Jokes on him; Roy blames himself, too. He doesn’t know, doesn’t _remember_ what he did, but he knows it’s his fault.

Then Oliver shows up and calls him Arsenal, like he’s been made apprised of everything that happened on that island he got stuck on. Probably by Superman. That guy loves truth and honesty. Roy wonders why the big guy in blue hadn’t searched for Green Arrow and dragged him back years ago, especially if Oliver truly had been marooned.

Then again, from some of the things Jason has mentioned about Batman and the Justice League, they’ve been busy, too. Saving the world, saving the galaxy, blah, blah, blah. 

Roy _likes_ the minor leagues.

He yells at Oliver, telling him it isn’t his fight as he snaps one of the Wild Dogs’ elbows as Oliver swings through on a fucking horse.

Punching him feels like the best thing he’s done since his last hit of H. Fucking prick deserves it. Him and his goatee and his new face mask, and fucking, stupidly attractive face.

It all comes rushing back. Ten years later and Oliver’s not a pretty boy anymore, but a handsome _man_ and Roy can see that now, understands Oliver wasn’t much more than a boy ten years ago, even eight years ago when he’d told him Roy was broken, worth abandoning. Oliver might have taken on fatherly characteristics to a fifteen-year-old who’d lost two dads already, but Oliver had been more of a brother, more of a mentor than a dad and Roy had put unfair expectations on him. 

It doesn’t change the crush, though. It all comes back and fuels the punch, fuels his “It’s all your fault!” but Roy’s really mad at himself. He’s even madder when Oliver does nothing. Amidst the chaos, he stays on the ground and asks Roy to hit him again.

“You know how many times I’ve _dreamed_ about beating you into a pulp? Knocking the rich and pretty _out of you_?”

His tone is bitter and harsh, but he reveals himself in those words, though Oliver doesn’t seem to notice, like how he never heard Roy masturbating, how he never caught Roy watching him.

He launches another punch as he demands to be paid attention to, accusing Oliver of killing him, killing the dumb hopeless kid that was once Speedy.

He’s distracted then, seeing his brother in a scuffle, and he ditches his emotions to grab Bird. It all goes downhill from there and it’s not until he’s at their makeshift camp, hunting for dinner that he tries to sort his thoughts out. Even that’s interrupted by Black Canary, a woman who is kickass in a fight, a pop star, and apparently his former partner’s girlfriend from the way she’s defending his honor to Roy. 

She’s hot, too.

When it’s all over, Roy takes stock, standing on the cliff’s edge with Oliver. 

“He threw Big Bow’s body down there. I wish I could throw away the blame – but I’ll always carry it with me. None of this would have happened if I weren’t an addict.”

He’s almost as tall as Oliver now, though he’s still less broad. His genetics mean he’ll never get Oliver’s bulk, try as he might. The goatee really does look good. He’s glad his goggles hide his eyes as he takes in the attractive picture Oliver makes as he chucks the remnants of his past into the river, letting go of his father, of Big Bow, now that he knows he wasn’t the one who killed him. That Big Bow died protecting Roy despite Roy being a total fuck-up and drunk off his ass at thirteen. That Bow died fighting for his rights, his land. His mind for once is silent.

Oliver looks at him gently – Roy can see it, even under the mask. “But you beat it. And now you’ve beat this. I’m proud of you. Should have said that a long time ago, when you needed me the most.”

It’s even later that night when he seeks out Ollie again.

“Step nine,” he says, as a greeting.

Oliver looks at him expectantly.

“Make direct amends wherever possible, except when it would injure them.”

Oliver nods. “I’m the one who should be making amends—”

“Let me fucking finish,” he snaps, and Oliver shuts up. He’s pushed the hood down, taken off his arm armor, and his mask. He manages to look old and young. The island, life, this recent takeover of his assets – something’s aged him. But he looks vulnerable, apologetic; it makes him look younger than his thirty-five years.

He’s still _pretty_ , even with a few strands of silver in his golden hair.

“You know, when you took me in, I had the biggest crush on you,” he finds himself saying, instead of the usual trite apologies.

The other man’s mouth drops open in shock.

“Yeah,” he laughs, smirk on his lips. “You, Oliver Queen, were fifteen-year-old Roy Harper’s first wet dream, first realization of my sexuality.”

“You’re…gay?” Oliver licks his lips, brow furrowed, not out of disgust, but simply confusion. It makes Roy chuckle harder.

“Bi. Pan, maybe,” Roy shrugs. “Hell, maybe omnisexual is better given I’ve definitely fucked some hot aliens. But yeah, I appreciate the masculine gender, human or otherwise.”

“This may be the weirdest apology I’ve ever received,” Oliver says, a smile playing at his lips. It’s his way of lightening the mood, of letting Roy know he doesn’t care about his sexuality.

Roy crosses his arms. “I’m getting there. I had a crush on you. Mostly because I have daddy issues and you turned out to be a real life, big damn hero. It’s like having a crush on Superman. Or so Dick told me.”

Oliver appears to choke for a moment. “Dick Grayson? Son of—”

“I’ve been around a bit while you were having a nice vacation on some Chinese island.”

“A vacation? Why I—”

Roy cuts him off, knowing Oliver was going to move the conversation into safer territory. “Anyway. I need to apologize because I did a lot of not great things. I was a brat. A fucked up, addicted teenage brat. I fantasized about you coming into my room, or me going to yours, not finding a girl and just fucking launching myself at you—”

“You know I would never—”

“I do know that. I _did_ know that. That was part of the problem.”

Oliver raises his eyebrows in question.

“You’re straight. I took my frustrations out on you. Stole loose change, drank your liquor, hell, I fucking spied on you. I’d love to blame that one on the drugs, but I was just that horny for you.”

“Spied on—”

Roy bares his teeth.

“Never mind. Go on.”

“I put a whole lot of expectations on you and I misused you for my own fantasies. It wasn’t right what you did. But I didn’t help. You were only twenty-five and you took in a damaged fifteen-year-old. I can’t entirely blame you for it all being too much. So,” he sucks in his stomach, sucks on his teeth, takes a deep inhale to get the confidence. Exhales. “I am sorry. And I forgive you.”

Oliver gazes at him for about thirty seconds, until Roy begins to deflate, until his anxiety begins to kick in, that Oliver is going to take back everything, refuse his help, kick him out again—

Then Oliver is wrapping his arms around him in a bear hug of epic proportions, fitting his massive hands and arms all the way around Roy and holding on like his life depended on it. He feels a tear along his hairline, hears the wetness in Oliver’s voice, and relaxes, letting it all happen. 

“I am so sorry, Roy Harper. I was an idiot and I hurt you. I said terrible things, things I didn’t even believe then, but said anyway. I turned you away when you needed me the most, and I’ll never forgive _myself_ for that.”

He pulls back, slowly letting Roy’s feet touch the ground again, begin to get feeling back into his arms. Oliver reaches out to gently cup Roy’s chin, stroking his skin with his thumb in a way that was both gently familial and surprisingly sensual.

“It means the world to me, everything you’ve said. I told you I’ve changed. I hope to live up to how you’ve grown. To be the mentor you need, to be a friend you can count on. Your equal. Your _partner_.”

He steps away, placing his hands in his suit’s pocket, a soft smile in place on his handsome features. His goatee twitches with barely hidden amusement. “I wouldn’t say I’m _entirely_ straight. There was this one kid back in boarding school—”

Roy slices his hands through the air. “Nope. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know I ever stood a chance. My sixteen-year-old self can’t take it and it’s pointless now.”

“You’re dating someone?”

“And you’re with Canary. So, it’s moot.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and it’s finally two adults, forgiveness between them, making them stronger in their bond. They’re on equal footing for once. The tension crackles, even as Roy bites his bottom lip, shifts his legs in an attempt to ease the pressure his cup is causing on his half-hard dick. Oliver is running his hand over the back of his neck, running his fingers through his hair there, and Roy recognizes the tell, the same gesture Oliver used to make when he was feeling unusually bashful around a girl he wanted to take home.

Roy thinks about the feel of Jason’s thick black hair when gripped in his fingers, of Kori’s soft breasts and gentle voice, the happy glow she lets off when her two boys are fucking each other for her benefit. He thinks of their relieved smiles when any of them comes home from patrol safe.

He wrenches his gaze away from Oliver’s piercing emerald eyes – so different from Jason’s sea green and Kori’s pear color – and coughs, ruining whatever might have been. Of all his mistakes, he’s never been a cheater, and he won’t be the reason for Oliver to do that to Canary. She’d probably beat him to a pulp.

“Yeah,” Oliver swallows. “Moot.”

It’s his turn to cough and shift, then he’s throwing an arm around Roy’s shoulder, bringing him into another half hug, flipping off his cap and ruffling his hair, like he used to when they were much younger, and Roy was Speedy, sidekick to the Green Arrow. They walk back to camp and Canary is there, a smug smile on her face, arms crossed in a way that pushes her boobs up and Roy tries not to stare and then realizes both of them catch him anyway, Canary by giving him a wink, Oliver by elbowing him with a mumbled “that’s my girl,” and Roy ends up grinning. It’s been a long time since he’s been by Oliver’s side, been at peace with the man, but the last five years have taught him teamwork and he thinks the team of Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Arsenal are going to tear down the corruption making Seattle sick that Oliver spoke of, and yeah, he can get used to this.

He’s finally _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow and chat with me [on tumblr](http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com)!


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